Sunday, August 18, 2013

Juventus claims the SuperCoppa title by a great win over Lazio.

The SuperCoppa in Italy pits last year's scudetto winners against last year's Coppa Italia winners in a match no one except the fans of either side really cares about. Sure, it's a chance to profit a sneak preview of what might be expected from two calcio heavyweights, but for the most part, this match gave us tiny in the way of surprises. Sure, we may not have thought Juve would put in four and Miroslav Klose wouldn't even get one, but in terms of style and personnel, tiny new was revealed.In the first half, Juventus supporters were likely most concerned with the fact that Claudio Marchisio went off injured in the 21st minute. The midfielder was involved in a rough collision with Stefan Radu and appeared to have hurt his knee. He tried to job it off but was soon after replaced by Paul Pogba.

But fans of the Old Lady should worry tiny, considering just how good the young Pogba is. Just a couple minutes after entering the pitch (Opta said 35 seconds, but that seems amazing), Pogba scored the opening goal. Andrea Pirlo stepped up for a free kick but, rather surprisingly, chose to go out broad rather than attempt for goal. Stephan Lichtsteiner got on the end of the ball and sent it to the center, where it deflected off Radu. Pogba turned, collected the ball, turned again and put it in the back of the net.

Then the rest of the first half passed in a blurry haze of not-very-interesting football.

Fortunately -- for the black and white contingent, anyway -- Juventus decided that they were weary of being bored by their own match and turned up the heat. It took just seven minutes after the restart for Giorgio Chiellini to score Juve's second. It came off a quick counterattack after a Lazio corner. Arturo Vidal slipped the ball over to Lichtsteiner, who raced up the right to feed it on to Chiellini.

Two minutes later, Lichtsteiner had a goal of his own. A fancy tiny flick from Mirko Vucinic put the Swiss straight in front of goal, with only Federico Marchetti to beat. With over 30 minutes left to play, Juventus were up 3-0.

But that just wasn't enough for the reigning champions - they had a message to spell out, and they needed to make certain no one missed their intentions. The bianconeri flooded the Lazio place, and, incredibly, Marchetti managed to save two brilliant shots. But once the ball fell to Carlos Tevez, well...well let's just say it looked as though the goalkeeper was struggling to save back the tears once the fourth goal went in.

With fifteen minutes left to play, Lazio managed to locate a good chance when Pirlo conceded possession. It was Klose with the opportunity, but Lazio's top man could only force Gigi Buffon into a save. Soon after, Juve cheaply gave away the ball again, and this time it was Enderson with the chance, although again Buffon was there to create the simple end.